


After

by vageege



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Some Booze, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:26:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8087080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vageege/pseuds/vageege
Summary: Reyes and McCree take a moment to recover.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i got emo and was compelled to type up this fast and tender mcreyes for our hearts . tagged gabriel & mccree because there isn't any straight up blatant romo content or anything. tagged gabriel/mccree bc i am absolutely implying some shit

 

Jesse had been alone when he'd received the news. Or at least, hadn't been with him.

 

McCree tapped his knuckles against the thick door with the frosted glass that led to the personal office of one Gabriel Reyes. He was met with silence. He entered anyway.

 

Reyes sat there in his fancy ergonomic chair, unmoving, with his elbows on top of the desk and his face in his hands.

 

So he'd been informed.

 

Of course he had. No way in hell McCree knew something Reyes didn't. So. McCree quietly nudged the door shut behind him.

 

"Boss."

 

It was spoken quietly. Carefully. Reyes didn't move.

 

McCree took a single step forward. And then another.

 

"I just heard. And I uh. I dunno, you prolly wanna be alone, right, sorry, I'll get..."

 

Reyes still wasn't moving. McCree stopped talking. He thought he'd be cut off, ramble swiftly halted in place per usual, but there was nothing.

 

McCree took another step forward. Cleared his throat. Let his hands rest on the back of one of the plush chairs positioned in front of Reyes' desk. Stared at the name on the plaque.

 

Reyes took a deep breath through his fingers and let them fall, looked up, eyes meeting McCree and staring at him like he hadn't noticed him being there the whole time.

 

He looked...

 

McCree pursed his lips together. This wasn't something he could prepare for, despite his years of training in fuck-all departments of twisted and brutal.

 

"McCree."

 

An acknowledgement of existence and nothing more.

 

"Commander. I uh."

 

He what. He didn't know. He came without a plan. His legs had started moving, one foot in front of the other, carrying him mindlessly to that which he was drawn. A moth to a flame, a candle in an old dark room: Gabriel Reyes. But the light was out.

 

Reyes stared at him with dead eyes. Like he could almost empathize with her.

 

McCree swallowed and lowered his gaze. Just above a whisper, he said, "Boss, I'm sorry."

 

"We're all sorry. The goddamn world should be fucking sorry," Reyes replied, his voice hoarse and hollow, like he'd been across a desert and back and there was still no water in sight.

 

McCree nodded slowly.

 

Reyes leaned back in his chair, his movements heavy. The lack of everything -- the bite in his voice, the fire in his eyes, all the sound in the big office with blank walls and a single plant in the corner -- it was all gone, and McCree found himself lost in the empty space.

 

He didn't have the map for this road. So he threw caution to the wind and went in the direction that pulled him the hardest.

 

"You okay?"

 

Reyes actually huffed a bit of a laugh at that. At McCree, of all people, being the one to ask, probably. But would anyone else? Had anyone else ever?

 

"I..." Reyes trailed off, closing his mouth and looking at McCree again with an expression Jesse couldn't place.

 

And then Reyes rubbed his face with one hand, and in that moment, he seemed older. Aged. The shit he went through in the army -- the enhancement program he and Morrison got put through that left them looking younger and harder and sturdier than they should all these years later -- flickered for a moment, almost.

 

After another long breath and a quiet sort of resignation, Gabriel Reyes spoke slowly and with purpose.

 

"She was my friend."

 

It felt like all the air was leaking out of Jesse's body. The sensation was almost painful.

 

Reyes watched him. And without saying anything, McCree walked around to Reyes' side of the desk. And once he was next to him, he reached out and paused, hesitated, like petting a kicked dog when you didn't know if it'd melt into you or snap at you out of defense. For fear of the unknown.

 

And then McCree's hand was on Gabriel's shoulder, eyes locked on deep and dark brown, and he said, "Lemme buy you a drink, Commander. Been a long day."

 

Reyes exhaled sharp at that. Not a laugh or anything. But McCree's hand slid from his shoulder as he stood up, eye level now, and he looked at him and held that gaze for a few seconds before sighing and muttering, "We’ll need more than just one."

 

They exited his office together in silence.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The evening set in quickly. The night was hot and sticky, same as the day, but with the sun gone and the dark set in, it felt a little better.

 

The booze wasn't hurting, either.

 

They stood, just the two of them, on one of the docking ramps for the airships that came in and out of the base. In front of them was a steep drop, maybe fifty feet. Below was a collection of buildings and lights, transports running their final routes of the night, cutting through the sea of dark blue and black that set in as the sun slipped further under the horizon.

 

"Feel bad for the kid," Reyes said once he pulled his lips from the bottle he kept tight in his grip. It was getting closer to empty.

 

"Fareeha?"

 

"Yeah. Tough little shit. She'll go down the exact path her mother tried to keep her from."

 

"That she will," McCree agreed, taking another drink from his own bottle. They'd skipped the bar and gone straight to the liquor store.

 

"You didn't exactly help, filling her head with all your bullshit stories."

 

"Aw, c'mon. Most of them stories was almost true. Bullshit my ass."

 

Reyes grinned at him, drunk and loose, maybe a bit dangerous, like an exposed wire. Jesse smiled back.

 

"She'll be commanding her own unit in a few years." Reyes sounded almost proud. "Better leadership qualities than you."

 

"She ain't shit for aiming her gun, though."

 

Reyes made a sound that was like a chuckle. He must've been pretty tore up.

 

"No, she isn't. Not yet. But not all of us were born wannabe cowboy sharpshooters."

 

"The hell you talkin' about, _wannabe_." McCree was still smiling. He couldn't help it.

 

But after a moment, the expression on Reyes' face changed in the low light that bled onto him from deep inside the hangars behind them. The wind was louder, up there.

 

After a moment, Reyes took another drink and said, "She was always afraid of me."

 

McCree walked over to him, smacked him on the back. "Hate to break it to ya, boss, but you're goddamn scary as hell."

 

Reyes snorted. "Not like you ever got the memo."

 

"Oh, I was scared of you, sure, but you kept on riskin' your ass to save mine." McCree swallowed, throat feeling a bit dry suddenly. Took another drink. "Man can't help but warm up to that, after a while."

 

Reyes glanced at him, kind of gave him this sharp clip of a laugh, shook his head a little.

 

"Don't be an idiot, McCree."

 

They stared at the darkened scenery before them. McCree couldn't say for how long.

 

"She wasn't ever afraid of me." Reyes spoke quietly now, like someone might hear them. Like he was admitting some secret. They weren't talking about Fareeha anymore.

 

McCree looked over with just his eyes. Watched the Adam's apple in Reyes' throat bob up and down.

 

"I might've been... a bit intimidated by her when we first met."

 

The moment broke because Jesse fucking laughed outright.

 

"Shut up, you stupid -- goddamn cowboy," Reyes responded immediately, smacking at the back of McCree's head, but Jesse could see the smile there. He could feel it.

 

"I get it, she's a powerful lady!" He kept laughing, dancing out of the way, precariously close to the edge of the rock face. "She scared me too, you remember! Outshot me with my own damn gun!"

 

And Reyes did apparently remember because he stopped his assault on McCree's skull to throw his head back and laugh.

 

"You were a mess," Reyes said through his drunk smile. "Not much has changed."

 

"Your mess to deal with now," Jesse replied too quickly.

 

The few seconds of silence that followed made the whiskey-warmth in his chest start to tighten and contract.

 

He searched his mind for something to add. Blank.

 

Yours.

 

The wind washed over them. This was not the first time they'd found themselves here. Over the last several years, the dock where they stood had been host to them after long missions that brought little closure, failures they wanted to bury, losses they wished they could get back. They settled things here. Drank them down and tossed them over the edge of the dock, let them fall.

 

Pushed to their boundaries until they struggled to define them anymore.

 

This was their home base, in a number of ways.

 

Your mess to deal with now.

 

God damn it.

 

Jesse opened his mouth.

 

"Commander, I didn't mean-"

 

"It's fine," Gabriel said, and Jesse almost didn't hear him over the wind. Reyes was still looking out over the edge. "You're not wrong."

 

McCree's mouth hung open in the dark. He watched Reyes take a long drink. McCree followed suit.

 

After a moment, McCree approached slowly. Came to stand by Reyes' side again, joined him in watching the vague movement below.

 

"We lost someone today who was more important than most of the people on this shit planet." Reyes' voice was heavy. "And I do not intend to let it happen again."

 

McCree was very rarely rendered so completely silent.

 

Reyes took another drink. And, with a deep and loud breath, he turned his bottle over and poured the remainder of the contents onto the rocky ground beneath them and said, "Ana Amari. The best goddamn sniper in the world. And my dear friend."

 

The sound of liquid hitting the earth stopped.

 

"Rest in peace."

 


End file.
